Rodríguez Llerena was accused in 1998 of placing a bomb at the Hotel Capital Meliá Cohíba.
Miami, United States. – The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cuba (Minrex) He reported this Friday The liberation of Salvadoran citizen Otto René Rodríguez Llerena, “who was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his participation, in 1997, in a terrorist attack in a hotel in Cuba.”
In the same statement, the Cuban Foreign Ministry took the opportunity to lash out against the United States: “It is necessary to remember that, while Cuba complies with their laws and guarantees that all terrorists respond to justice, the United States continues to allow it to be organized from their territory and finance violent and terrorist acts against Cuba, and that they enjoy impunity for intellectual authors and perpetrators of terrorism.”
The Minrex also said that “several of these individuals have lived free and without punishment in Miami for decades. Even some have died without being tried, such as the cases of Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch.”
Rodríguez Llerena was accused in 1998 of placing a bomb at the Hotel capital Meliá Cohíba, in an attack on August 4, 1997, which only caused material damage. The Cuban version is that the Salvadoran, an ex -military, was caught when he returned to the island a year later under orders of Luis Posada Carriles, to deliver a burden of explosives to an alleged anti -Castro agent that turned out to belong to Cuban intelligence.
Rodríguez Llerena was finally prosecuted in 1999 and sentenced to death, but in 2010 this penalty was switched for 30 years in prison. In 2016, He was granted probation and was waiting for judicial resolution for deportation to El Salvador.
Then consulted about the situation of Salvadorans convicted of terrorism in Cuba, Salvadoran Chancellor Hugo Martínez declared: “Our obligation and commitment to human rights is that, even people who are accused of crimes as serious as terrorism, that fundamental precept is fulfilled” of not executing them.
He also added that Rodríguez Llerena would have been released because his case “had less aggravating than the other two cases, according to what the consulate reported”, and described as a “speculation” to link her probation with an eventual collaboration to point to Luis Posada Carriles as an intellectual author of attacks.
Other Salvadorans convicted in Cuba
In An office of February 1999Press Agency Associated Press (AP) indicated that the Attorney General of the Republic of Cuba had also recommended the death penalty for the Salvadoran Raúl Ernesto Cruz León, who “admitted” having placed bombs in three hotels and a restaurant on September 4, 1997. In those attacks the Italian died Fabio Di Celmo32 years old, and seven other people were injured.
Initially, the Justice of the Cuban regime sentenced him to death by shooting, but said sanction It was subsequently commuted to 30 years in prison After an appeal process ended in 2010.
Cruz León’s death sentence was reduced to 30 years in jail. Meanwhile, a third Salvadoran, Francisco Chávez Abarca, was also convicted of “terrorist acts.” In December 2024, the Cuban regime advertisement The release of Cruz León, which had been arrested in September 1997 and accused of placing bombs between July and September of that same year in the National Hotels, Capri, Triton, Chateau-Miramar, Copacabana-where Di Celmo’s death occurred-and in the restaurant La Bodeguita del Medio, a place very frequented by tourists.
